The ADAMTS (a disintegrin and metalloproteinase with thrombospondin type I motifs) proteins are a family of metalloproteinases containing a number of conserved domains, including a zinc-dependant catalytic domain, a cystein-rich domain, a disintegrin-like domain, and at least one, and in most cases multiple, thrombospondin type I repeats (for review, see Nicholson et al., BMC Evol Biol. 2005 Feb. 4; 5(1):11). These proteins, which are evolutionarily related to the ADAM and MMP families of metalloproteinases (Jones G C, Curr Pharm Biotechnol. 2006 February; 7(1):25-31), are secreted enzymes that have been linked to a number of diseases and conditions including thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) (Moake J L, Semin Hematol. 2004 January; 41(1):4-14), connective tissue disorders, cancers, inflammation (Nicholson et al.), and severe plasmodium falciparum malaria (Larkin et al., PLoS Pathog. 2009 March; 5(3):e1000349). Because of these associations, the ADAMTS enzymes have been recognized as potential therapeutic targets for a number of pathologies (Jones G C, Curr Pharm Biotechnol. 2006 February; 7(1):25-31). Accordingly, methods of producing large yields of ADAMTS proteins having high specific activities, which are free of contaminants such as viruses, BSE, and pathogens like Mycoplasma bacteria, are needed.
For cultivation of cells, particularly eukaryotic cells, and more specifically mammalian cells, there is a constant need to use special culture media providing nutrient substances that are required for efficient growth of cells and for the production of biological products, especially biopharmaceuticals, such as, for example, recombinant proteins, antibodies, viruses, viral antigens, and virus-like particles. For the efficient production of said biological products, it is important to achieve an optimal cell density as well as an increase of the protein expression itself in order to obtain maximal product yield.
Cell culture media formulations have been supplemented with a range of additives, including undefined components like fetal calf serum (FCS), several animal derived proteins and/or protein hydrolysates of bovine origin as well as protein hydrolysates derived from plants or yeast.
In general, serum or serum-derived substances, such as, e.g., albumin, transferrin or insulin, may comprise unwanted agents that can contaminate the cell cultures and the biological products obtained thereof. Furthermore, human serum derived additives have to be tested for all known viruses, including hepatitis viruses and HIV which can be transmitted via serum. Moreover, bovine serum and products derived thereof bear the risk of BSE contamination. In addition, all serum-derived products can be contaminated by unknown substances. When using serum or protein additives derived from human or animal sources in cell culture, there are numerous problems (e.g., the varying quality in composition of different batches and the risk of contamination with mycoplasma, viruses or BSE), particularly if the cells are used in the manufacture of drugs or vaccines for human administration.
Therefore, many attempts have been made to provide efficient host systems and cultivation conditions, which do not require serum or other animal protein compounds.
Such serum-free media have been developed on the basis of protein extracts derived from plants or yeast. For example, soy hydrolysates are known to be useful for fermentation processes and can enhance the growth of many fastidious organisms, yeasts and fungi. WO 96/26266 describes that papaic digests of soy meal are a source of carbohydrate and nitrogen and many of the components can be used in tissue culture. Franek et al. (Biotechnology Progress (2000) 16, 688-692) describe growth and productivity promoting effects of defined soy and wheat hydrolysate peptide fractions.
WO 96/15231 discloses a serum-free medium composed of a synthetic minimal essential medium and a yeast extract for the propagation of vertebrate cells and a virus production process. A medium formulation composed of a basal cell culture medium comprising a rice peptide and an extract of yeast and an enzymatic digest thereof, and/or a plant lipid for growth of animal cells is disclosed in WO 98/15614. A medium comprising purified soy hydrolysate for the cultivation of recombinant cells is disclosed in WO 01/23527. WO 00/03000 discloses a medium that comprises a soy hydrolysate and a yeast extract, but also requires the presence of recombinant forms of animal proteins, such as growth factors.
EP-A-0 481 791 describes a biochemically defined culture medium for culturing engineered CHO cells, which is free from protein, lipid and carbohydrate isolated from an animal source, further comprising a recombinant insulin or insulin analogue, 1% to 0.025% w/v papain digested soy peptone and putrescine. WO 98/08934 describes a serum-free eukaryotic cell culture comprising hydrolyzed soy peptides (1-1000 mg/L), 0.01 to 1 mg/L putrescine and a variety of animal-derived components, including albumin, fetuin, various hormones and other proteins. In this context, it should be noted that putrescine is also known to be comprised in standard media like DMEM/Ham's F12 in a concentration of 0.08 mg/L.
The plant and/or yeast hydrolysates, however, are undefined mixtures of oligopeptides and other unknown components and contaminants. Moreover, the quality of commercially available lots of hydrolysates varies extremely. As a result, there are large variations in the production of recombinant proteins or viral products (a variation of up to a factor of three) as a function of the lots of hydrolysates used (“lot-to-lot variation”). This drawback affects the proliferation of the cells as well as the protein expression of each cell. US 2007/0212770 describes various animal protein-free and oligopeptide-free, chemically defined culture mediums that are useful for the large-scale production of recombinant protein biopharmaceuticals.
One ADAMTS family member, ADAMTS13, cleaves von Willebrand factor (vWF) between residues Tyr 1605 and Met 1606, a function responsible for the degradation of large vWF multimers in vivo. Loss of ADAMTS13 activity has been linked to a number of conditions, such as TTP (Moake J L, Semin Hematol. 2004 January; 41(1):4-14), acute and chronic inflammation (Chauhan et al., J Exp Med. 2008 Sep. 1; 205(9):2065-74), and most recently, severe plasmodium falciparum malaria (Larkin et al., PLoS Pathog. 2009 March; 5(3):e1000349).
Thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) is a disorder characterized by thrombotic microangiopathy, thrombocytopenia and microvascular thrombosis that can cause various degrees of tissue ischemia and infarction. Clinically, TTP patients are diagnosed by symptoms such as thrombocytopenia, schistocytes (fragments of erythrocytes) and elevated levels of lactate dehydrogenase (Moake J L. Thrombotic microangiopathies. N Engl J. Med. 2002; 347:589-600; Moake J L. von Willebrand factor, ADAMTS13, and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. Semin Hematol. 2004; 41:4-14; Sadler J E, Moake J L, Miyata T, George J N. Recent advances in thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. Hematology (Am Soc Hematol Educ Program). 2004: 407-423; Sadler J E. New concepts in von Willebrand disease. Annu Rev Med. 2005; 56:173-191).
In 1982, Moake et al. found unusually large von Willebrand factor (UL-vWF) multimers in the plasma of the patients with chronic relapsing TTP (Moake J L, Rudy C K, Troll J H, Weinstein M J, Colannino N M, Azocar J, Seder R H, Hong S L, Deykin D. Unusually large plasma factor VIII:von Willebrand factor multimers in chronic relapsing thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. N Engl J. Med. 1982; 307:1432-1435). The link between UL-vWF and TTP gained support with independent findings by Furlan et al. and Tsai and Lian that most patients suffering from TTP are deficient in a plasma metalloprotease, now known to be ADAMTS13, that cleaves vWF (Furlan M, Robles R, Solenthaler M, Wassmer M, Sandoz P, Laemmle B. Deficient activity of von Willebrand factor-cleaving protease in chronic relapsing thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. Blood. 1997; 89:3097-3103; Tsai H M, Sussman, I I, Ginsburg D, Lankhof H, Sixma J J, Nagel R L. Proteolytic cleavage of recombinant type 2A von Willebrand factor mutants R834W and R834Q inhibition by doxycycline and by monoclonal antibody VP-1. Blood. 1997; 89:1954-1962; Tsai H M, Lian E C. Antibodies to von Willebrand factor-cleaving protease in acute thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. N Engl J. Med. 1998; 339:1585-1594).
The ADAMTS13 protease is a 190 kDa glycosylated protein produced predominantly by the liver (Levy G G, Nichols W C, Lian E C, Foroud T, McClintick J N, McGee B M, Yang A Y, Siemieniak D R, Stark K R, Gruppo R, Sarode R, Shurin S B, Chandrasekaran V, Stabler S P, Sabio H, Bouhassira E E, Upshaw J D, Jr., Ginsburg D, Tsai H M. Mutations in a member of the ADAMTS gene family cause thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. Nature. 2001; 413:488-494; Fujikawa K, Suzuki H, McMullen B, Chung D. Purification of human von Willebrand factor-cleaving protease and its identification as a new member of the metalloproteinase family. Blood. 2001; 98:1662-1666; Zheng X, Chung D, Takayama T K, Majerus E M, Sadler J E, Fujikawa K. Structure of von Willebrand factor-cleaving protease (ADAMTS13), a metalloprotease involved in thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. J Biol. Chem. 2001; 276:41059-41063; Soejima K, Mimura N, Hirashima M, Maeda H, Hamamoto T, Nakagaki T, Nozaki C. A novel human metalloprotease synthesized in the liver and secreted into the blood: possibly, the von Willebrand factor-cleaving protease; J Biochem (Tokyo). 2001; 130:475-480; Gerritsen H E, Robles R, Lammle B, Furlan M. Partial amino acid sequence of purified von Willebrand factor-cleaving protease. Blood. 2001; 98:1654-1661).
Mutations in the ADAMTS13 gene have been shown to cause TTP (Levy G G, Nichols W C, Lian E C, Foroud T, McClintick J N, McGee B M, Yang A Y, Siemieniak D R, Stark K R, Gruppo R, Sarode R, Shurin S B, Chandrasekaran V, Stabler S P, Sabio H, Bouhassira E E, Upshaw J D, Jr., Ginsburg D, Tsai H M. Mutations in a member of the ADAMTS gene family cause thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. Nature. 2001; 413:488-494). Idiopathic TTP, often caused by autoantibodies inhibiting ADAMTS-13 activity, is a more common disorder that occurs in adults and older children and can recur at regular intervals in 11% to 36% of patients (Tsai H M, Lian E C. Antibodies to von Willebrand factor-cleaving protease in acute thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. N Engl J. Med. 1998; 339:1585-1594; Furlan M, Lammle B. Deficiency of von Willebrand factor-cleaving protease in familial and acquired thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. Baillieres Clin Haematol. 1998; 11:509-514).
Non neutralizing autoantibodies could also inhibit ADAMTS13 activity by inducing clearance from circulation (Scheiflinger F, Knobl P, Trattner B, Plaimauer B, Mohr G, Dockal M, Dorner F, Rieger M. Normeutralizing IgM and IgG antibodies to von Willebrand factor-cleaving protease (ADAMTS-13) in a patient with thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. Blood. 2003; 102:3241-3243). Plasma ADAMTS13 activity in healthy adults ranges from 50% to 178% (Moake J L. Thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura and the hemolytic uremic syndrome. Arch Pathol Lab Med. 2002; 126:1430-1433). In most patients with familial or acquired TTP, plasma ADAMTS13 activity is absent or less than 5% of normal activity. Without treatment, the mortality rate for TTP exceeds 90%, but plasma therapy has reduced mortality to about 20% (Moake J L. Thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura and the hemolytic uremic syndrome. Arch Pathol Lab Med. 2002; 126:1430-1433).
vWF synthesized in megakaryocytes and endothelial cells is stored in platelet α-granules and Weibel-Palade bodies, respectively, as ultra large vWF (UL-vWF) (Moake J L, Rudy C K, Troll J H, Weinstein M J, Colannino N M, Azocar J, Seder R H, Hong S L, Deykin D. Unusually large plasma factor VIII:von Willebrand factor multimers in chronic relapsing thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. N Engl J. Med. 1982; 307:1432-1435; Wagner D D, Olmsted J B, Marder V J. Immunolocalization of von Willebrand protein in Weibel-Palade bodies of human endothelial cells. J. Cell Biol. 1982; 95:355-360; Wagner D D, Bonfanti R. von Willebrand factor and the endothelium. Mayo Clin Proc. 1991; 66:621-627; Sporn L A, Marder V J, Wagner D D. von Willebrand factor released from Weibel-Palade bodies binds more avidly to extracellular matrix than that secreted constitutively. Blood. 1987; 69:1531-1534; Tsai H M, Nagel R L, Hatcher V B, Sussman, I I. Endothelial cell-derived high molecular weight von Willebrand factor is converted into the plasma multimer pattern by granulocyte proteases. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 1989; 158:980-985; Tsai H M, Nagel R L, Hatcher V B, Sussman, I I. Multimeric composition of endothelial cell-derived von Willebrand factor. Blood. 1989; 73:2074-2076). Once secreted from endothelial cells, these UL-vWF multimers are cleaved by ADAMTS13 in circulation into a series of smaller multimers at specific cleavage sites within the vWF molecule (Tsai H M, Nagel R L, Hatcher V B, Sussman, I I. Endothelial cell-derived high molecular weight von Willebrand factor is converted into the plasma multimer pattern by granulocyte proteases. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 1989; 158:980-985; Dent J A, Galbusera M, Ruggeri Z M. Heterogeneity of plasma von Willebrand factor multimers resulting from proteolysis of the constituent subunit. J Clin Invest. 1991; 88:774-782; Furlan M, Robles R, Affolter D, Meyer D, Baillod P, Lammle B. Triplet structure of von Willebrand factor reflects proteolytic degradation of high molecular weight multimers. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 1993; 90:7503-7507).
ADAMTS13 cleaves at the Tyr842-Met843 bond in the central A2 domain of the mature vWF subunit and requires zinc or calcium for activity (Dent J A, Berkowitz S D, Ware J, Kasper C K, Ruggeri Z M. Identification of a cleavage site directing the immunochemical detection of molecular abnormalities in type HA von Willebrand factor. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 1990; 87:6306-6310). vWF exists in “ball-of-yarn” and filamentous form as seen by electron microscopy (Slayter H, Loscalzo J, Bockenstedt P, Handin R I. Native conformation of human von Willebrand protein. Analysis by electron microscopy and quasi-elastic light scattering. J. Biol. Chem. 1985; 260:8559-8563). Furthermore, atomic force microscopy confirms that vWF exits in a globular conformation under static conditions and an unfolded filamentous state after exposure to shear stress (Siedlecki C A, Lestini B J, Kottke-Marchant K K, Eppell S J, Wilson D L, Marchant R E. Shear-dependent changes in the three-dimensional structure of human von Willebrand factor. Blood. 1996; 88:2939-2950). This could occur also in vivo when one end of the vWF filament is anchored to a surface.
Thrombi of TTP patients consist of little fibrin and mainly of vWF and platelets, suggesting vWF-mediated platelet aggregation as a cause of thrombosis (Asada Y, Sumiyoshi A, Hayashi T, Suzumiya J, Kaketani K. Immunohistochemistry of vascular lesion in thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, with special reference to factor VIII related antigen. Thromb Res. 1985; 38:469-479). Patients with relapsing TTP have ultra-large multimers in the plasma. The UL-vWF multimers accumulate over time because the persistence of the inhibitor (Anti-ADAMTS13 Ab) decreases ADAMTS13 activity. The UL-vWF multimers are hyperactive and unfold as a result of shear stress causing platelet aggregation, resulting in intravascular thrombosis (Tsai H M. Von Willebrand factor, ADAMTS13, and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. J Mol. Med. 2002; 80:639-647; Tsai H M. Deficiency of ADAMTS-13 in thrombotic and thrombocytopenic purpura. J Thromb Haemost. 2003; 1:2038-2040; discussion 2040-2035).
It is believed that the presence of hyper-reactive UL-vWF multimers in the plasma due to ADAMTS13 deficiency could be associated with an increased risk of arterial thrombosis linked to coronary heart disease.
As ADAMTS proteins have been implicated in a number of diseases and conditions, there is a need in the art for methods of large scale production of recombinant ADAMTS proteins having high specific activities, which are suitable for pharmaceutical formulation and administration. The present invention provides methods which satisfy these and other needs in the art for the production and purification of ADAMTS proteins.